Painted Figures for October

Early Saxons: 11 this month

A much better month despite a week in the US and a couple of days in Prague.

The score was 43 this month which is my second best of the year. The yearly total is 254 in 43 weeks or 5.90 figures per week. So I am now only four figures behind schedule! November will be a five week month as I only count whole weeks but I have to go to Ankara for five days so that will slow things down. So I need to paint 34 figures to get back on par. Difficult but not impossible.

Musketeer Miniatures Early Saxons: 11
Musketeer Miniatures Great North Wars Russian: 1
Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Rohan Captain: 1
A&A Miniatures Middle Imperial Roman ARchers: 15
Crusader Miniatures Dark Ages irish: 1
Foundry Darkest Africa character: 1
Perry Miniatures Sudan KRRC: 12
Foundry Spartan General: 1

It's an all Perry week: Sudan British and Beja, Dutch Jaegers and a cuirassier!

Next up are a few more Beja, the final batch of the King's Royal Rifle Corps and a few Perry Napolenics which are well on their way. It may be pushing it a bit as I am out quite a lot this week.

3rd century Romans: Another Blog!

It's my TMP icon!

I have had a couple of days off sick with a nasty bug and while I haven't been well enough to paint much (that's how my wife knew I was really ill) I have had time to set up another blog. Having enjoyed painting my 3rd Century Archers I have decided to get back to work on my 3rd Century Roman Army and also start collecting some Palmyran troops as opposition.

It will all unfold, very slowly, here:

http://3rdcenturyromanwab.blogspot.com/

Middle Imperial Roman Archers

I finished seven A&A MIR archers today, so with the one I have already painted I have almost a viable unit. These figures represent the troops in the mid third century who fought against the Persians and Palmyrans. A&A already make Palymyran cataphracts and are promising more troops so I will continue to build this Eastern Roman force. Hopefully, I can get another eight done this week.

World War 1 British infantry

Renegade on the left. Great War Miniatures on the right.

I have just had my first delivery from Great War Miniatures.

A couple of years ago, when they first came out, I ordered quite a lot of the Renegade Miniatures World War 1 figures. I wasn't very interested in the late war, with all that tedious trench warfare, but the early period with rapid manoeuvre and fighting retreats apppealed to me, especially as my Grandfather was in the KRRC in the BEF.

So I was very attracted to the new Great War Miniatures early war figures, even though I had been warned that they were not compatible with the Renegade figures.

Not so! I am very fussy about different scales but these seem fine to me! I am now hoping that they will produce all the figures I want from an early WW1 range, such as French Cuirassiers and German Uhlans.

Workbench Plan

Well, I have no chance of being disciplined about concentrating on a particular army but I have come to a sort of rationalisation. I will only have figures on the workbench from a limited selection of periods where I am building units, but I can't have two armies from the same period on the go at the same time.

So, there will be some Ancients figures, some Dark Ages, some Renaissance/pike and shot, some Nineteenth Century and some fantasy. So that's five periods. If I want to add another then one of the other periods has to go away. At the moment I have Musketeer GNW Swedes (another lot arrived today), Perry Sudan, Musketeer Early Saxons and Artizan Pulp. I have a couple of odd darkest Africa and a Perry French Cuirassier as well but they don't count as I have already started them.

So now I realise that I need to get some Ancients on the go! I have done a few Spartans lately and could do with a change. I fancy doing some more Romans so the choice is between some Italian allies for my Punic Army, some more EIR, some 3rd Century Romans or some Caesarean. I've actually started some Italian allies, Caesarean and some 3rd century ones so they wouldn't take so long to finish as starting another unit of EIR.

I just looked in the Roman box and found 15 A&A Middle Imperial Roman armoured archers. These have several advantages as a project: they have no shields or spears and I have got the base colours down on most of them already. I finished one last year and it was pretty straightforward so I reckon I could turn out quite a few in a reasonably short space of time and try to get my average back up again.

Let's see if that works!

Archduke match Crisis!

The Archduke is the winebar I have been occasionally known to retire to after work before catching the train home from Waterloo station. Well when I say "occasionally" I mean at least once a week. And I have been going there for some time. In fact, next May I will have been going there for twenty-five years, mainly with my long suffering friend Bill, my equally long suffering sister (who also both go home from Waterloo) and an even longer list of former girlfriends (and some ex-girlfriends -including the ones my wife doesn't like me to still see!). In fact I go so often I have been offered a discount and nowdays the cute barmaid from Shanghai gets anxious if I haven't been in for a week or so.

So what has all this got to do with painting soldiers?

Archduke matches! They are the perfect length for stirring pots of Humbrol paint; just slightly longer than standard matches. But now with no smoking in winebars (hooray!) there are also no matches and the last time I went (last week) the basket of matches had GONE! What shall I do? I only have about twenty boxes left. I may have to find out who made them and actually buy some! Match makers must be having a thin time of it so they might be grateful for an order!

Did a little bit of painting tonight but even with a daylight bulb it's quite hard on the eyes so I have decided to get base colours down during the week and do shading at the weekends.

A better week..

Well, I finished eight figures this week, which is the same as my entire total for September. I have four more almost done and they should be finished tomorrow.

The Rohan captain is for my Lord of the Rings Battle Companies unit; a game I play with my little boy quite often. As you win (or lose, in my case) games you can win or buy extra troops, so you often need to paint one or two for the next game. I also have a mounted version which I may do now as well.

Coming up for the next two weeks are, therefore, Sudan British Riflemen, a few more Spartans, some more Early Saxons and some more GNW Swedish.